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including revisions, rebuttal letters and editor decision letters).

Version 0.2
(accepted)

Dear Authors,Congratulations.Your manuscript has been re-peer reviewed and found to be suitable to be published in Peer J.The manuscript will undergo reformatting according to the style of Peer J.
We thank you for submitting to us and hope that you will submit future manuscripts to us for publication.

Basic reporting

The discussion section of this article has been substantially rewritten in response to reviewer comments. Additional information has been provided which explains more about the instruments and significance of the findings and helps to contextualize the results from the current study.

Experimental design

The authors have provided further details about the selection process and inclusion criteria for the study in the rewritten article. This addresses my earlier concerns.

Validity of the findings

Additional information has been provided about the comparison groups which helps to clarify the findings from this study.

Version 0.1
(original submission)

Dear Authors, Please do the necessary revisions especially in the discussion section which requires more clarity.The revised manuscript will be re-reviewed by the same peer reviewers when it is resubmitted.

Basic reporting

This is an easy-to-follow piece of academic writing. The reporting has been done clearly and meets the standards of the journal. Topic has been introduced sufficiently and can guide readers on what to expect from the rest of the work.
A few typo has been noticed; line 80 & line 165

Experimental design

No comment

Validity of the findings

The Result & Discussion sections are acceptable. Authors may want to recheck the description of finding stated on Abstract (line 26) as it may be misleading and confusing.

Basic reporting

This is a very important piece of research as it deals with an emergency population that is of utmost importance to the United Nations - the refugees. The write-up is also great. However, the authors did not include a conclusion in the manuscript. A conclusion should be included which will 'wrap up' the manuscript with key take-home messages and/or recommendations and possibly policy implications of findings.

Experimental design

No comments

Validity of the findings

No comments

Comments for the author

This is a generally well-written work. I however have some general comments
Line 23 - QoL should be written consistently as either QoL or QOL throughout the manuscript
Line 31 - Keywords: "Psychological health" better than psychological and "Physical health" rather than physical. I am of the opinion that :"Environment" and "Social" are too generic to be used as keywords in a work as this. I think Syria may be added as a keyword.
Line 93 - Be consistent how you write this: Is this WHOQOL-BREF or WHOQOL-Bref
Line 130 - I think tables should be inserted after the first mention (next paragraph). I think this should generally be observed for the other tables.

Basic reporting

Experimental design

Validity of the findings

Comments for the author

In essence, the research is quite interesting area and something that unfortunately will be the world experience in the future considering many unresolved and provoked conflicts.

The research results among the participants should be more specific in regard to the categories that make differences between the refugees, in particular regarding the education levels, previous employment, and factors that make received support even detrimental.

The manuscript should be structured more precisely and clear in technical term otherwise some data should be confusing (eg. see ‘Introduction’ line 42). In section ‘Results’ it should be textual explanation of findings in Table 1, 2, and 3; to be more specific and representing findings in this research in particular effects on the refugees general health and psychological condition – stress related problems. The section ‘Discussion’ should represent ‘invitation’ for further research in this specific and important problems either with the same population or in some other refugee population.

The ‘Discussion’ in this manuscript is general and confusing for those who want to do similar research in the future. The authors should consult more literature about these problems (in particular stress-related disorders) as a main problem for refugees who live in the camps, not only focus of technical or numerical data provided by the UNHCR.

With further work on specific issues about this research, the manuscript will be satisfactory for publishing.

Basic reporting

Overall the paper is well written and appropriately referenced, positioning the current research within the broader quality of life for refugee group literature.
The format is largely descriptive; presenting the findings as a comparison with population norms for the WHOQOL-BREF and two other refugee groups. There is little analysis or discussion around the significance of QOL findings for the Syrian refugee group compared with refugees in Gaza or West Africa, and although the authors acknowledge the difficulties and inappropriateness of doing this, one is left wondering what the overall aims of the current study may be. There is reference to this study providing the first report of QOL scores for Syrian refugees so it will be interesting to see if further details are to be published.
At present the first part of the discussion is essentially repeating what is already outlined in the results section and it then goes straight on to the concluding paragraph with no real discussion of how any of this fits into the broader literature described in the introduction. The article would benefit from adding another paragraph or two to discuss the significance of the findings, as well as providing more information about the different QOL domains eg what is actually meant by environment-related QOL. That is especially relevant given that the Syrian refugees scored significantly higher than both the general population and refugees in Gaza in this domain.

Experimental design

More detail is needed about the sample, how participants were selected etc - see below for further comments

Validity of the findings

No comments

Comments for the author

The following comments are suggested and minor typos noted:
Line 24 Abstract – suggest insertion of ‘compared’ after QOL ie compared to refugees in the Gaza...
Line 42 – the first two population figures for Duhok and Erbil appear to be run together in the current format. Perhaps rephrase the sentence to position the numbers next to the respective cities for clarity.
Line 80 – typo - ‘were’ should be ‘we’
Method section – Sample – more detail is needed about how the participants were selected and inclusion/exclusion criteria. A table may also be useful to present demographic data beyond their education level and marital status. Perhaps this could be broken down by camp to give a better picture of the participants. Are most of them ethnic Kurds? You mention later (Line 125 of results section) that you compared to non-clinical based samples but no mention about your own sample – was it also non-clinical based? Was it random selection or convenience sample, did you include more than one member of each family etc.
Method section – Measures – I don’t think you should say that Syrian refugees tend to speak the Kurdish language, surely only those refugees from the Kurdish regions would fall into this category, which I assume are the majority of the group you studied but may not necessarily reflect Syrian refugees from other parts of the country. It would be better to say something like “The (or Most) Syrian refugees in these camps tend to speak the Kurdish language”.
Line 117 – mention which University you are referring to.
Line 141 – typo – ‘the differences’ is repeated
Line 165 – typo - ‘that’ should be ‘than’
Lines 181-184 – sentence is awkward and would benefit from editing/rewriting.
Line 188 – typo – QOL is repeated unnecessarily – suggest deleting one of them

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